DOWNTON ABBEY

Downton Abbey series 1

5

The Downton Abbey first series is fantastic! For anyone who has not yet watched the splendid Downton Abbey- what are you waiting for?
From amazing sets, fabulous costumes, and a storyline that has you hooked from episode 1, you'll find yourself emersed in a past world, wondering whether you would have been successful enough to live above the stairs, or below!
The characters are fantastic, with each of the main 16 having an ongoing storyline to keep you gripped.
This was one of my best purchases, and I won't be waiting around to buy series 2- the war has started!

Downtown Abbey(1)

downton abbey

3

Despite some Mills & Boon-ish moments and a lush, sweeping soundtrack that resembled classical music struggling to recover from traumatic brain surgery, Downton Abbey feels ripe with potential, both for addictively gossipy tales of relationships and rivalries as well as for longer arcs of social change and historical unravelling. Already we have been confronted with the egregious spectacle of the gold-digging Duke of Crowborough (Charlie Cox) hoping to marry Mary for what he imagines will be her fortune, a ploy devised by Downton's footman Thomas (Rob James-Collier), the Duke's embittered gay lover. A more sympathetic relationship is the one between the Earl and John Bates (Brendan Coyle), the latter having served as the Earl's batman in the Boer War. Though Bates is handicapped by a wartime leg wound, much to the unsympathetic disgust of his co-workers, the Earl is determined to keep him employed as his valet.
Fellowes won an Oscar from his screenplay for Gosford Park, and this is very much the son of..., but he seems to have mastered the knack of the multi-tracked serial storytelling required by television. Thanks to an impecably toff-ist background, he also possesses an instinctive understanding of all this stuff about class, heritage and social status, though many viewers may have been bewildered (as I was) by talk of "the entail". I have now looked it up, and it means "restriction of inheritance to a limited class of descendants for at least several generations".

The best thing I've seen in years

5

From the first five minutes of the first episode of Downton Abbey, I was absolutely hooked. This is, quite simply, British TV at its very best.
An incredible cast - with Dame Maggie Smith stealing every single scene she appears in - and a wonderful storyline. Gentle, gripping, emotional, factual, engaging - who knew this series was going to be so good?
If you haven't seen it then I cannot recommend it highly enough. The characters are so well-developed that you feel that this could genuinely be a fly-on-the-wall documentary rather than a drama. There is comedy, tragedy, intrigue and some of the best acting of recent years.
The only bad thing about Downton is having to wait a whole year for Series 2!

Downton Abbey - Series 1

Downton Abbey - Series 1

4

I have to say I loved Downton Abbey, and thought it was one of the better programmes airing this year along with Luther, Sherlock and the stunning Channel 4 drama Mo. Downton Abbey was beautifully produced, well cast and interesting, when it was first advertised it looked as though ITV had a hit and from the first episode I think Downton Abbey lived up to that expectation.